December 16, 2004

• Thank you, Sully. Google suggests to me that I'm the only person in North America who hasn't/hadn't heard of her. Wow. Pinky promise. I've got it made, got it made, got it made....
• No, you're not the only one.
• I hadn't heard of her either.
• heard of who? what?
• Who in the world are those people, and why should I be interested in their conversation?
• the woman was a teacher who got caught for having sex with one of her students... why you would be interested i cannot say... obviously the teen is the student...
• Ah. I vaguely recall that. Clever of her to discourage the use of condoms.
• using condoms = being weird got it.
• This story is being made into a bigger deal than it is.
• now I understand why goetter got an old Van Halen tune stuck in my head.
• Aside from the obvious prurient interest, I'm fascinated by how juvenile she sounds. From her voice and mannerisms, I wouldn't have put her as any older than 16.
• more scoop Forgive my un-PCness on this, but from what little I know of this case (which is really very little), locking this woman up for 15-30 years seems a tad excessive. Shit, we used to be off and married at 14. Then again, we were usually dead by 40. Who knows. Don't know the details of how this story came to light or what the boy and/or his family suffered. Smirks about lucky kid aside, the teacher-student boundary was certainly violated.
• "Debbie has some profound emotional issues that are not her fault" ... The defense is expected to point to the horrific April 2001 death of Lafave's older sister, Angela Beasley, who was 24 years old and five months pregnant when an intoxicated Army captain, Joseph Piotrowski, plowed his Jeep into her car. Piotrowski is now serving a 30-year prison term for the crime. oh. THAT explains EVERYTHING. not her fault!
• So tell me, badgoat, would you be as sanguine if an adult male teacher was trying to get a female child pregnant?
• I think her age plays a large factor in this. At 23, she's barely 9 years older than the boy. And certainly her mind has probably not reached 23 yet, from the way she talks.
• Please cancel the "certainly" and "probably" in the sentence. I sound like a moran.
• rogerd - I know LEGALLY its the same - but somehow it just doesnt 'outrage' me in anything like the same way. Legally there is no assymetry - morally - (at least in my mind) theres a million miles of assymetry. Sure - it's still wrong. But I can imagine the 14 year old boy not being particulrly traumatised by the whole affair... I mean, when I was 14, I would have frikkin LOVED to bone a hot teacher. Damn yes... Still, she was in a position of trust, with a minor and abused it, and should be punished.
• Not to derail the thread, but I think our modern society needs to seriously reconsider the definitions and age of adulthood. A person aged 12 can be tried as an adult. Sometimes even younger than 12. A person aged 18 can vote but in many states, not drink. Until the 26th amendment rectified the situation in the US, they couldn't vote, but could be drafted into war. A person aged 16 in many states can get legally married with the consent of their parents. What I'm seeing here is a definite tendency toward assigning the responsibilities of adulthood (adult trial and penalties for crimes committed by the young), without bestowing the privileges of adulthood. I'm not by any means saying that someone who is 16 is fully mature, emotionally or neurophysiologically (the pre-frontal cortex is the last part of the brain to differentiate and properly specialize in controlling behavior, empathy, and impulse), but I think we can also agree that 18 is equally arbitrary. Removing the factor of the abuse of her authority, or, if nothing else, the conflict of interest between, well, her interest and her job responsibilities, I'm increasingly finding it difficult to accept the vast difference between the responsibilities that the young are often required to shoulder and the privileges they are allowed to enjoy. I guess my question is this: If a 14 year old can get an adult punishment for a crime, and is thus the age of legal responsibility, why is it not the age of consent? If they are adult enough to be legally responsible for the decisions they make, should they not then be permitted to make the full range of decisions (voting, sex, drinking) that an adult is permitted to make?
• So tell me, badgoat, would you be as sanguine if an adult male teacher was trying to get a female child pregnant? I know, I know, rogerd...I'm a travesty of contradiction. Their ages would make a difference if the sexes were reversed. I don't know if she was "trying to get pregnant" by the student either, haven't heard that. As I said before, I don't know all the facts in this case. Clearly the teacher violated a trusted boundary and that is worthy of punishment (and treatment it sounds like in her case). My point was that 15-30 yrs seems excessive.
• There should be a legal difference between the seduction of a teenager (taking advantage of a teenager's own hormones and desire to be have sex, whether male or female) and sexual assault (unwanted sexual contact, including that forced on through power and authority). Teenagers do want sexual contact, whether it is good for them or not. And it is entirely inappropriate for a teacher to be involved with a student (actually, even if that student is an adult, it is inappropriate). But is is a world of difference from a sexual assault. The teacher should have been fined, not permitted to teach minors again, and placed in couseling, but not jailed. Not being able to teach again, and the stigma show now bears for the rest of her life, has already disrupted her whole life - it is punishment enough. (Indeed, it's what happened to a teacher at my high school who actually assaulted and harrassed a few girls - he was not jailed, but only banned from teaching.)
• fifteen to thirty years DOES seem excessive. this is the price we pay when "we" elect politicians that are "tough on crime". once these "criminals" are locked up, it's 'out of sight, out of mind'... unless you happen to be the poor schmuck sitting in a cage for 15 years. now, had this teacher been a man, he would be labelled a pedophile and sex criminal, and burned at the stake. rightfully so? well, not according to the US Constitution..
• Monkeyfilter: where every promise is a pinky promise.